Ganache Football Brownies

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Supplies:

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.*Football Cookie Cutter

*1/2 cup White Chocolate/Candy Melting Wafer, like Ghirardelli, for piping lace on footballs

*Pastry Bag with small round tip

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Ganache

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Coats/frosts about 20 cookies depending how thick you spread ganache.

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*1 cup Whipping Cream

*4 ounce Bittersweet Chocolate, chopped small

*4 ounces Semi Sweet Chocolate or Bittersweet, chopped fine

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In a double boiler on medium low heat, heat the milk until warmed then add the chocolate pieces and stir with heat-resistant rubber spatula, stirring until chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and spoon with a tablespoon the ganache on top of each football cookie. Refrigerate cookies until set and pipe on lace and white lines on the football with the melted white chocolate candy melting wafers. (Make sure by testing on wax paper the right consistency (not to warm) of the melted wafers for piping lace and lines.)

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Fudge Brownies

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Melt together the Chocolate:  (In a double boiler on low heat or in a glass bowl, microwave for 30 second increments, stirring occasionally just until melted.)

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*1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, melted

*1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips, melted
After melting the chocolate add the following and mix with the creamed mixture below.

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Cream together in stand mixer:

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*1/2 cup Butter, at room temperature

*3/4 cup Brown Sugar

*3/4 cup Granulated Sugar

*2 teaspoons Vanilla

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After you have creamed together all of the above ingredients, add the 4  eggs, one egg at a time until well mixed.

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* 4 eggs, at room temperature

*1 cup of  All-purpose Flour, sifted

*1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt

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Add the flour and the salt  and mix on low until smooth texture.

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Prepare a parchment lined 9″ x 13″ baking pan sprayed with Cooking Spray.

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Bake the Brownies at 325*F. For 35-40 minutes. Do not over bake.

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After brownies have cooled; Using  a football shaped cookie cutter, cut out footballs and spread on ganache.  Refrigerate until set.

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Remove set ganache footballs from the fridge and pipe on the lace/ties onto footballs as desired.

Fudge Brownie recipe adapted from Cookies and Cupcakes

Also See Peanut Butter Cup Footballs

Enjoy!

Lindy

Football Field Goal Post Cookies

*Pastry bag with small round tip

*1/2 to 1 cup  White Chocolate/Candy Melting Wafers,  like Ghirardelli, melted, used for piping goal posts and pipe the goal post to the size desired.  (Let the goal post set after piping before adding to cookies.  Also make sure the goal posts are thick enough so they won’t break when inserting in the cookie. Use light hand pressure when inserting goal posts and make a few extras incase some break.)

*Silpat/Baking Mat, for easy release of goal posts

*Rectangle Cookie Cutter, or cut into rectangular shapes

*Flat Pastry Cutter, optional but helps with decorating

*Green Sugar Crystals

*Colorful Dallies, Non Pareils/Sprinkles

*1 container Cream Cheese Frosting, like Betty Crocker or homemade Cream Cheese Recipe

Sugar Cookie Recipe

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Ingredients:

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*1/2 cup Butter

*1 cup Sugar

*1 teaspoon Vanilla

*1 Egg

*1/2 cup Heavy Cream or Whipping Cream, Sour Cream or Cream Cheese (I’ve used each one of these variation each gives the cookie a slightly different taste and they’re all yummy!)

*3 1/4 cup All-purpose Flour

*1 teaspoon Soda

*1/2 teaspoon Salt

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In a stand mixer on medium-low speed cream together the butter and sugar. Then add the vanilla, egg and cream of your choice and mix just until combined.

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Using Sifter, sift together in a bowl the flour soda and salt and slowly add to the creamed mixture, mixing on low just until barely combined. Dough should be slightly sticky. Do Not Over Mix!

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Then divide the dough into 3 dough balls, flatten dough balls making disk shapes. Now wrap each disk in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes or more.

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Remove 1 dough disk at a time from the refrigerator and roll-out disk on a floured surface with rolling-pin or use 2 pieces of plastic wrap, placing the dough disk in the center of 1 of the pieces of plastic wrap and the second piece on top of the dough disk, use rolling-pin and roll out the cookie dough about 1/2 inch thick.

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Use a cookie cutter of your choice and cut out shapes in the rolled out dough. Repeat for each dough disk. Then add to the next dough disk the scraps from the first disk or (discard scraps of dough), continue this technic until all the dough is used.
Place cookies on a Silpat covered half baking sheet, 12 cookies per sheet. For best results refrigerate the cut cookies on baking sheet before baking 5-10 minutes.

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Bake the cookies in a pre-heated 425* F. oven for 8-12 minutes or barely starting to turn golden on the bottom; baking time depends on the size of cookie cutter used. Do Not Over Bake! If you do over bake they will become to hard. Cool on baking sheet.

Let cookies cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

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*3 1/2 cups Confectioners’ Sugar

*2 teaspoon Meringue Powder, helps keep the frosting shape when piping

*5 tablespoons Salted Butter, softened

*2 1/2 teaspoons Vanilla, clear if desired

*1    (8 ounce ) packages Cream Cheese, room temperature

Whisk together in bowl Confectioners’ Sugar and meringue powder.

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In a stand mixer with paddle and cream together butter, cream cheese and vanilla.

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Slowly add confectioners’ sugar and meringue powder mixture to creamed mixture.

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Mix in stand mixer until well combined and desired texture, scraping sides every so often.

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Frost cookies and then use the a flat pastry cutter to mark and guide the sprinkles.  This will help keep sprinkles in the spots you want them to go on your frosted cookie.

I sprinkled on the colorful round sprinkles first (people) using the flat pastry cutter to guide the edges so that they didn’t get onto the green field.  Then I sprinkled the green grass sprinkles last in the center of the cookie.  Now add the goal post  ( I used a lollipop stick to poke holes in the cookie where I wanted the goal post go on the field.)

Enjoy!

Lindy